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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

‘The hour has
come,’ declared the Chairman, as the crowd cheered and gave the one finger
salute. ‘We are here at the Rock of Authority to choose a new husband for our
dear Mother Mary of Democracy, fondly known to all of us as MMD.’

‘Hurray,’
shouted the crowd, ‘bring on the suitors!’

‘Let me first
advise everybody on the sort of husband we are looking for,’ said the Chairman.
‘Mary of Democracy is the Mother of our Great Family who has always guided us.
Unfortunately, because of our tradition, she could not be the Father of the
Nation, so we have always had to elect a man as to take care or our Mother.’

‘And they always
treated her badly!’ shouted a woman from the back.

‘Abash gender
violence,’ shouted another.

‘Unfortunately,’
admitted the Chairman, ‘Our Mother has not been fortunate with her husbands. We
gave her Kafupi, but she left him after he became the Master of Multi Deceit.
She fell in love with the Mighty Muwelewele Democrat, but he was so good he was
taken by the Lord. Then came the dreadful Monster of Muddled Depravity, who
drove our poor Mother to her grave.’

‘So if she’s
dead,’ somebody shouted, ‘why does she need a husband?’

‘Is there no way
to escape a husband?’ cried one woman.

‘She is our soul
and our spirit,’ explained the Chairman, ‘which lives on. Ours is a matrilineal
clan, and all authority is derived from the Founder of the Clan. Any new leader
must undergo ritual and symbolic marriage to our Mother who, according to our
sacred tradition, founded the Clan in 1991 at the Garden Hotel in Lusaka, where
she gave birth to a room full of instant leaders.’

‘Where are they
now?’ somebody asked.

‘In jail,’
answered another.

‘Get on with it!’
shouted somebody else. ‘Where are the suitors?’

‘I now call upon
the first suitor,’ said the Chairman, ‘to come to the microphone and tell us
why he thinks he should be the new husband for our beloved MMD. I give you the
first candidate, Mr Fidgit Mutanti.’

Onto the stage
climbed a stiff robot of a man, who began to speak in a continuous monotone,
while jerking his arms in a strange mechanical manner, and speaking without
moving his lips. ‘I am the right man for MMD because I understand economics and
supply and demand and fiscal discipline and foreign investment and I have memorized
all the IMF guidelines all the way from the contents page to the bibliography
and …

‘Get him off!’ shouted
the crowd, as they hurled rotten tomatoes, and the robot climbed stiffly down
from the stage, never to be seen again.

‘I now call upon
Mr Shitulene Musokelela,’ declared the Chairman, as a shifty old bald fellow
slid slyly up to the microphone, his eyes looking left and right and up and
down. Then he began to mumble into the microphone, saying ‘I have over a
thousand bicycles at my farm which will be your reward when you vote for me…’

‘Rotten egg!’
shouted the crowd, as a rotten egg hit Musokelela full in the face. ‘Bring on
Mumbo Jumbo!’

A fat greasy
little fellow immediately jumped energetically onto the stage and shouted at
the crowd. ‘Do you believe in God?’

‘Yes!’ shouted
the crowd enthusiastically, ‘Hallelujah!’

‘Do you believe
in the resurrection?’

‘Yes!’ they all
shouted.

‘And life
everlasting?’

‘For ever and
ever, Amen,’ chanted the crowd.

‘Then why should
you choose one of these dead suitors to marry a dead woman, when you have a live pastor who can resurrect our dear MMD, so we can live together as Father
and Mother of the Nation!’

‘Hurray!’ they
shouted. ‘Eternal life with Pastor Mumbo Jumbo!’

‘Can he really
do resurrections?’ some people asked

‘Oh yes,’ somebody
else answered. ‘He has resurrected himself six times already!’

‘Then let him resurrect
MMD!’ everybody shouted.

‘By popular
acclamation,’ declared the Chairman, ‘Mumbo Jumbo is the winner!’

It was an hour
later whenMumbo Jumbo stood by the
broken gravestone, pointed to the letters MHSRIP and said ‘Tell me, what do these
letters mean?’

‘May Her Soul
Rest in Peace,’ chanted the crowd.

‘No!’ shouted
Mumbo Jumbo, as he raise his arms to Heaven. ‘You must have faith! These
letters mean May Her Self Resurrect in Person! And I call upon the Lord to
bring her back to us right now!’

And, sure enough,
as he spoke there was a crack of thunder, and the earth in front of the
gravestone began to move, and rise up. Then out of the ground rose a thin and
ghostly figure, wearing a white shroud on which was written CC in large
letters.’

But another
shouted ‘It means that the Christian Coalition has been resurrected!’

And even as he
said it, ghostly figures were beginning to rise up from all the graves, as the
crowd began to panic, running helter-skelter, over the unkept mounds and broken
gravestones, some shouting ‘Judgement Day!’ Others shouting ‘Witchcraft!’

Pastor Mumbo
Jumbo was left standing in the gathering gloom, surrounded only by his ghosts. ‘Yes,’
he announced with satisfaction, ‘A marriage in a graveyard. My beloved Christian
Coalition is back!’

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The crowded
court fell silent as the Judge looked sternly towards the accused standing in
the dock. ‘This Tribunal has been established to look into the strange goings
on in the House of Justice, which became a bawdy house where men came for lewd
and perverted favours. How do you plead?’

The woman in the
dock looked up plaintively to Mr Justice Tribunal. She wore a white wig and a
long black gown, and her painted face disguised her years of sin and
debauchery. ‘I plead guilty, My Lord.’

‘Very good,’
said the Judge. ‘I’m pleased that you appreciate the way this Tribunal works.
First I find you guilty, then I investigate the case to find out how you became
guilty.’

‘My Lord, isn’t
that turning justice upside down?’

‘Huh!’ snorted
the judge, ‘You should know! You started out as Madam Justice in charge of the
House of Justice, but you ended up as Madam Lustice in charge of the House of
Lust. All your justices were supposed to be pure virgins, kept away from
society, so that they could dispense justice fairly and objectively, removed from
the demands of sinful men. But you turned them into whores in a whorehouse!'

‘Yes, My Lord,’
admitted Madam Lustice, as tears poured down her face, and she took out her powder
case and powdered her face, trying to repair the damage to her cosmetic mask.

‘You were
supposed to keep these beautiful judges virtuous and independent, but you
turned them into the slaves of base men, crooks and politicians who were trained in the
art of forcing themselves upon the innocent for their own lustful and perverted
pleasures.’

‘I know this is very
painful for you,’ said the judge, ‘that a woman of your previous good character
and virtue should have fallen into such a filthy slough of sin and depravity.
Perhaps you could enlighten this court, which has an appetite for salacious
tales, on how you sank so low.’

‘It all began
some four years ago,’ began Madame Lustice, dabbing her eyes with a silk
handkerchief. I was sitting quietly in my office on a Friday afternoon when the
door suddenly flew open, and in stepped the Big Man.’

‘A big man, or THE Big Man?’ enquired the judge, as the
crowd murmured.

‘The Big Man,’
confirmed Madam Lustice. ‘He stepped into the room, locked the door behind him,
and then went to the window and drew the curtains. As I stood up, he drew me to
him, held me close, and said I want a
favour from you. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch your front. Nobody
refuses me.’

‘Why did you not
try to prevent this illegal entry?’

‘My Lord,’ said
Madam Justice, as another tear ravaged her make-up, ‘you must understand my
situation. I had been kept separate from men all these years. I had heard in my
courtroom what sinful men do to innocent women, but I had no personal
experience. Now the Big Man had his arms around me. As he held me tight, I felt
his charisma. It was pressed hard against me. Do me a favour he whispered, as he pushed his tongue in my ear. Yes, I said. Yes, yes yes I kept saying, as I felt the power of the Big Man flow
into me. He had given me his power, and I had found out why he was called the
Big Man.’

‘So was he
pleased that you gave him this favour?’

‘That’s what surprised
me,’ replied Madam Lustice. ‘He stood up and said Now I have done you this favour, I want you to do me a favour. A friend
of mine is coming before your court on Monday, and I expect his case to be
dismissed!’

‘So you did him
a favour?’

‘That’s how it
continued. Every Friday afternoon he would do me a favour, and every Monday
morning I would do one for him.’

‘And did the
other judges also lose their virginity?’

‘When they saw
how much I was enjoying myself, they all joined in.’

‘And soon,’ said
the judge sternly, ‘It became known as the High Jinks Court and the Supreme
Ecstasy Court, with the Director for Public Prostitution writing all the judgments,
and the Solicitor General soliciting for more customers.’

‘But then it all
went wrong?’ suggested the judge.

‘Terribly wrong.
Something we hadn’t expected. The Big Man lost his job, and the next Big Man
came looking for favours. We didn’t like the look of him. We had come to love
the previous Big Man and all his friends, but the new lot were too old, too fat
and too ugly. We just couldn’t change partners like that. It was heartbreaking.
We all refused.’

‘So then what
happened?’

‘We were accused
of corruption and running a whorehouse!’

‘Very unfair!’
said the judge. ‘I can see you are a virtuous woman after all. Therefore I have
decided that the earlier judgment is overturned. I have also decided that you are now
Ready for Marriage. You must come back to Malawi with me!

As the two
judges walked out of the court room arm-in-arm, somebody from the back shouted ‘They
look like two men to me!’

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I was sitting on
the veranda, studiously contemplating my third brandy of the afternoon, when
round the corner swept a pair of pencil blue jeans and a clinging pink top
bearing the strident message ‘SOD OFF!’

‘Grandpa!’ she
crowed, as she bent down to give me a peremptory kiss, ‘Caught you at it! Mummy
says the brandy will kill you.’

‘Don’t try to
divert attention from your own misbehavior,’ I said sternly. ‘It’s Tuesday
afternoon and you’re supposed to be in school!’

‘I’ve run away
from Zambia National High School,’ she declared. ‘I’m now a refugee here in
Kalakiland!’

‘You mean you decided
to Sod Off!’

‘Exactly,’ she
said. ‘I’m now Secretary of the Secret Society of Sod Off!’

‘Congratulations!’
I said, ‘Now go to the kitchen and get yourself a coke, and fetch me another
bottle of brandy. Then I’ll grant you asylum.’

‘That’s corruption!’
she laughed, as she danced off to the kitchen.

She was soon
back with the two bottles. ‘So,’ I said, ‘I remember you told me about the
terrible corruption at that school. Was that why you had to run away?’

‘Hah!’ she
laughed, ‘it was certainly corrupt, but I don’t think it was any different from
other schools. The headmaster was stealing the PTA funds, the boarding master
was stealing the food, the prefects were renting out the dormitories, the teachers
were sleeping with the Form V girls, the exam papers were on sale beforehand –
you know, just the normal sort of things.’

‘So what had
happened to the School Rules?’

‘Look, grandpa,’
laughed Thoko, ‘do you know the meaning of the word corruption? It means that
nobody is following the rules! Or rather, there is a completely different set
of rules operating.’

‘So you got to
understand the other set of rules?’

‘Oh yes, I soon
got to know how it worked. I became a prefect and got my own mattress, helped
my friend become a food monitor so I could eat well, bought exam papers at
half price, and got a strong boyfriend
to protect me from Speedy Gonzales the Biology Teacher.’

‘So you were
learning a lot. A real preparation for life after school. What went wrong? Why
did you run away?’

'When we came
back this term there was a new headmaster. He said he was going to lead the
fight against corruption.’

‘That sounds
good. Did he put things straight?’

‘He just caused
confusion. Every morning at assembly he made new announcements. One day old
teachers would be fired, and new ones appointed. Then the next day the old ones
would be brought back, and the new ones fired. Then the English teacher was
told to teach Physics, and the Physics teacher became the English teacher. And
so it went on. On day the Chemistry Lab became the Geography Room, but the next
week the Geography Room became the Library. Then the Library became the gymnasium,
after he has sent all the books to poor children in Botswana. In the end we
were all too confused to be corrupt.’

‘Perhaps that
was a good thing. What was the name of the new headmaster?’

‘We used to call
him Cycle Mata, because he was always going round in circles.’

‘So did he bring
back the Old Original School Rules.’

‘No. Nobody knew
what the Original Rules were, they had been thrown out years ago. And the
changing staff and changing curriculum was just causing confusion.’

‘The pupils were
getting angry.’

‘Of course. We
were now failing our exams because we didn’t know who was selling genuine
illegal papers and who was selling fake illegal papers, and even the teachers
didn’t know which were the genuine papers that were supposed to be used for the
exam.’

‘So what did
Cycle Mata try to correct this confusion?’

‘He told us all
to join a new school organisation called the PF, the Pupils’ Fantasy, and all
would be well. The new PF School Secretary was Mr Splinter Kapimbe, and he was
appointed to supervise the Deputy Head, poor old Dotty Scotty.’

‘And how did
Splinter Kapimbe set about setting things straight?’

‘He announced
that if we saw anybody doing anything corrupt, we should report the matter
straight to him, quite ignoring Dotty Scotty or the prefects or the
Disciplinary Council.’

‘And did
Splinter Kapimbe explain what he meant by corrupt behaviour?’

‘Yes. He said that
we should report any person who did not belong to the PF, or spoke against the
PF, because such people were sympathetic to the old regime, were in favour of
corruption and were enemies of the school.’

‘And what did
the pupils think of this Splinter Kapimbe?’

‘We never saw
him. Some people said he was too small to see. Others said he was a witch who was
casting evil spells. Others said that the PF had taken over all the schools,
and Splinter Kapimbe was the one in charge of all of them.’

‘And you decided to run away?’

‘I liked the
previous system, where the system was corrupt, but we knew and understood the
rules, and could organize our own corruption. But now this Splinter Kapimbe had
corrupted corruption so fast that we completely lost control. He was in
charge and could change the rules at any minute.’

‘A most
unsatisfactory education,’ I admitted. ‘So what is your message to Secretary
General Splinter Kapimbe?’

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

‘All rise,’ ordered the Clerk of Court, as in swept the Judge
Mutunga, latest star of our entertaining judiciary. ‘Today,’ intoned the
Clerk, ‘we return to the case ofDBZ vs Mr Red Miimba. I call upon Mr Miimba to return to the witness box.’

‘Mr Miimba,’ said the judge, ‘Disbursing
Billions of Zillions, trading as DBZ, is suing you in your capacity as a
director of Postmortem Tours. DBZ is demanding the return of the twenty billion
pin which they made the mistake of lending to you. What do you have to say for
yourself before I pass judgement?’

‘M’Lord,’ replied Miimba wearily, ‘this is
well known to be a politically motivated case. As the manager of DBZ, Mr
Dubious Brainless Zombie has already explained to this court that the loan was
to support the Postmortem Bus Tours of Monstrous Mansions in New Kasama. These
tours were organized so that ordinary citizens could see how their tax money
had been squandered and misappropiated by the previous government. This was
part of the Fight Against Corruption.’

‘Mr Miimba,’ said the judge sternly, ‘I am
not interested in whether your bus tours were to New Kasama or Timbuktu. But I
am interested in how you were lent twenty billion pin when you were notoriously
insolvent and owed money all around town.’

‘M’Lord, the government backed the loan
because my tours were exposing corruption.’

‘Hmmm,’ murmered the judge. ‘But if this
corrupt loan was such an important part of the Fight Against Corruption, then
why did DBZ suddenly call in the loan? Was this an unexpected sign that the
Fight Against Corruption had begun to succeed?’

‘A new government came in,’ explained
Miimba. ‘And the new government immediately started the Fight Against the Fight
Against Corruption, and realized that I was now part of the Fight Against the
Fight against the Fight Against Corruption. So DBZ called in the loan because
they had to follow instructions from the new government.’

‘So DBZ brought you to court to get their
money back?’

‘Yes, M’Lord.’

‘Was that really because the loan was
corruptly obtained?’

‘Certainly not, M’Lord. That could not
possibly have been the case, because the government’s new Fight Against the
Fight Against Corruption was in support of corruption.’

‘But why didn’t you just repay the loan?’
wondered the judge.

‘It was a matter of principle,’ explained
Miimba. ‘From the outset it was understood that this money was just a grant for
our good work, and only described as a loan for accounting purposes. Therefore
the demand for repayment was obviously being made in bad faith.’

‘I put it to you,’ said the judge, ‘that DBZ
stole this money from the people, and you were stealing it from DBZ, and this
was understood on both sides.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Miimba. ‘I quite agree
that if one thief lends money to another thief, the second thief should perhaps
be open to the accusation of receiving stolen property. But I should not need
to remind Your Lordship that no such charge is before this court, and you would
do well to concentrate your mind on the actual matter in hand.’

‘It seems to me,’ retorted the judge, ‘that
despite all your claims of political machinations, the simple truth of the
matter is that you borrowed twenty billion pin and you should repay it. What do
you say about that?’

‘I would warn you to be careful,’ said
Miimba ominously. ‘The previous judge in this case was about to rule in my
favour, and see what happened to him!’

‘What do you mean?’ laughed the judge.
‘Don’t you want me to rule in your favour? Anyway, I wasn’t thinking of doing
so!’

‘You don’t seem to understand the political
predicament of the judiciary, or the danger of your own position’ replied
Miimba. ‘The last judge failed to understand that the government wanted a
judgment against me, so when they saw that he was about to rule in my favour,
he was recused.’

‘Well,’ said Miimba, ‘maybe he wasinfusedorexcusedor justconfused,
but he certainly had to leave in a hurry. That’s why you were suddenly
allocated this case.’

‘Oh good,’ said the judge, ‘so if I rule
against you, I shall be doing the right thing!’

‘Don’t you understand anything?’ sneered
Miimba. ‘The government has changed since then, the Fight Against Corruption
has resumed, and the people in government are all my friends again. So I am
just giving you a friendly warning that if you rule against me, you are putting
yourself in a fix.’

‘Well,’ said the judge, ‘The law says that
if you borrow money you should repay it. So I order you to do so.’

Two days later the TV evening news
included the following item: ‘High Court Judge Mutanga has been arrested
and charged for stealing a pencil from Shoprite. ACC Spokesperson has revealed
that, after the judge’s home and office were searched for twenty-four hours,
investigating officers found the pencil concealed in a desk draw, and Judge
Mutanga could not produce a valid receipt to justify his possession of the item
suspected to have been stolen. The charge is further aggravated by the
suspicion that this allegedly stolen pencil is the very one used by another
judge when he was forced to recuse himself. Police bond has been refused on
suspicion that the judge could easily repeat the same offence if allowed out of
custody.’